Quirks
The NESmaker software is great, but there are a lot of confusing usability issues, bugs, quirks, and "gotchas", to learn. This article attempts to identify these issues with a focus on the NESmaker software specifically (as opposed to the many quirks of the code or NES game development in general). Saving and Loading * When loading a project or creating a new project, the software does not ask if you'd like to save the current project first. * When closing the software, it asks if you'd like to save first, even if you just saved it. * The software lacks a "Recent" menu for quickly loading recent projects. Menu Bar * The "Help" menu is aligned to the right side of the window, making it easy to miss. * There are context-sensitive menu items added to the main menu bar at the top when certain things are selected in the tree. This is unusual and may be hard to notice. Poorly Named Items * The "Project Info" button leads to a dialog that contains various settings, rather than information. The dialog also does not match the button; it has the caption "Initial Data". Tree View * Some items are in unexpected places, such as the node for "Game Objects" being used to handle the weapon/projectile offset placement. * Some Nodes have unexpected functionality, such as selecting "Sound", and right-clicking to get options to import famitracker files. It might be reasonable to miss this, because other nodes show options like this differently, such as adding buttons to the main window pane. With importing and exporting specifically, a menu bar item might be expected, as with selecting monsters or game objects. Other * When you have a monster selected, clicking the empty space near the tiles will select the tile in the top-left corner, editing the monster's graphics unintentionally. * When you have a screen showing, clicking the empty space near the screen area will apply the current selected tile, editing the screen unintentionally. * When a script is shown in the main window pane, the background color is the standard window color. This usually indicates something that can't be edited, but this is not the case. * When a game object is selected, there is a button "Save NEW". It does not save the object as a new object, as with monsters because the Game Objects are fixed to 16 objects. * When a graphics asset is selected, there is an "UPDATE" button, but it doesn't update anything except the thumbnail in the tree view. With game objects and monsters, clicking almost anything will update the thumbnail, but for graphics assets you must use this otherwise uselss "UPDATE" button. Buttons and other Controls Inconsistant and Improperly Sized Controls Many buttons are sized or placed differently than similar buttons with similar functions and captions. Some examples: * The "Object Details" button on a selected game object is taller than the similar button on a selected Monster. * The "Manage Animations" button on a selected game object isn't tall enough; the "g" is cut off. * The dropdown for "Animation:" on a selected game object or monster isn't wide enough to display the default item "DefaultAnimation", despite the wider "Frame:" control just below it. Close Buttons in Strange Places * In "Project Settings", the "Project Labels" tab contains a "Close" button that closes the Project Settings dialog. None of other tabs have this button, and since changes don't require any kind of confirmation and are kept when using the "X" to close, it's superfluous. * The "Initial Settings" tab in the "Project Info" ("Initial Data") dialog contains a similar button as above, this time with the caption "OK".